


In the Eye of the Beholder

by avislightwing



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Semi-graphic violence, Trauma, this is a thing that hurt me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 07:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: Based on cardinalrachelieu's Cutthroat Fanfiction: ACOTAR Edition Generator. Prompt was:CHARACTERS: azriel and lucien; TROPE: locked in a room together with no escape; TWIST: vampire au





	In the Eye of the Beholder

Lucien knows why they’ve done this.

He knows. He knew from the second the door had slammed shut. They’ve wanted him for ages; coveted his loyalty, his power, even his looks. It isn’t easy to find one like him, one with enough charisma and sensuality that he could lure victims to them easily, even with the loss of his eye. Like flies to honey. Sometimes he feels like that’s what he was turned for:  to be a lure.

And now he’s the one in the trap.

Azriel is still trying to get out – shoving at the door, teeth gritted.

“It’s no use,” Lucien says, panting. “We’re stuck.”

“No,” Azriel snarls, his knuckles already raw from pounding on the bolted door. Lucien’s nostrils flare instinctively, catching the salty-sweet scent of Azriel’s blood. “There has to be a way.”

“Give it _up_ , Azriel,” Lucien snaps. “They don’t want us getting out, and they’ve done a hell of a job with it.”

“What they want,” Azriel responds, voice hoarse, “is for you to kill me.” He turns to Lucien, and his hazel eyes are dark. “Isn’t it?”

Lucien gives a slow nod. “I’m going to try my best not to, if that’s any consolation.”

Azriel, despite his usual icy veneer – more like a vampire than Lucien himself is – suddenly seems very human. Very… vulnerable.

Soft.

Lucien wonders idly if he would have to bite down hard to pierce Azriel’s skin, or whether it would part at a mere brush of his fangs. Wonders if he would taste as good as he smells – and looks.

“It isn’t,” Azriel says bluntly. “Not when you’re looking at me like Elain looks at the last sugar cookie.”

Lucien flushes silver and looks away. “Looks like they’ve provided for you, at least,” he says, gesturing to the cabinets. “I found food in there. Between that and the bathroom in the corner, you aren’t going to die of hunger or thirst.”

“What a relief.” Azriel goes over and turns the faucet on experimentally, then washes his hands off under the stream, killing the iron tang of blood that filled the room. “Better?”

“A bit,” Lucien admits. “You should get some sleep. I promise I won’t…” He trails off.

Azriel slumps onto the bed. “We’ll get out of this somehow.” He forces a short laugh. “Good thing you’re trapped here with me, then, don’t you think?” he says. “Imagine if you were trapped here with Elain. Much harder to resist.”

Lucien doesn’t smile back. “Yes,” he murmurs. “Lucky.”

 

Lucien can’t help watching Azriel as he sleeps.

He looks tense, hard, even in slumber. He curls into a fetal position, arms wrapped around his chest, soft curls tumbling over his face.

_Beautiful_.

Lucien’s startled by the word, but it’s entirely accurate. Azriel is beautiful, both asleep and awake. This is not, in a way, a new thought for him; not in one sense. Lucien has always found men beautiful as well as women. He remembers being surprised to realize that some people don’t, confused as to how someone could look at a beautiful person and not find their heart beating faster, their blood warming, simply because they’re the wrong gender.

But seeing Azriel as beautiful like that… well.

Objectively, he’s recognized it from the beginning. He met the human for the first time when Azriel almost killed him. It was only the kindness of his friend Feyre – also a vampire – that prevented him from going through with it. Lucien can still feel the way the silver knife felt at his throat, Azriel’s hand so near that he could see the ripples of scar tissue that marred it.

He remembers thinking, dazedly, that Azriel had to be a vampire, that no one who looked like that – darkness and lean fury and eyes that seemed to swallow light – could possibly be human. But then he smelled the man, and no vampire ever smelled like Azriel did. Like leather, and sweat, and something sweet that burned the back of Lucien’s throat. Vanilla, perhaps, or rum, or lilies.

Azriel smells like that now.

Lucien shifts in his chair. It would be so easy. So easy to slink to the side of the bed on his cat-like feet, bend over the sleeping man, sink his fangs deep into his neck. Drink.

He stands up abruptly, paces the room. Never mind how easy it would be – he can’t. He promised himself long ago that he’d never do that to anyone. It was how he was turned – forced to watch as Jessie was drained, then pinned against a wall and writhing as they forced their poison into him.

He’s broken that vow a few times, and each weighs heavy on his heart. Each time he had no choice, and each time he left a body in his wake.

The thought of killing Azriel, of turning the living, breathing man before him into a lifeless corpse or even the facsimile of death he himself wears, of making his red blood run silver, of changing his painful, confusing, _human_ scent into the same sickly-sweet odor that always hangs around his own kind, is enough to make his stomach turn. Lucien doesn’t want to harm him. What he wants is to reach out to him, brush the hair from his damp forehead, kiss him until his limbs uncurl and he feels safe.

There is no good ending here, no happily ever after. For they are both monsters who’ve cheated death, and it is creeping into the room to claim them.

 

Lucien’s throat is burning.

_It hurts, doesn’t it?_ He winces, twitching his head to the side fast. Too fast. He can see Azriel watching him warily out of the corner of his eye, but that’s the least of his problems. He hasn’t heard her voice in… a long time.

It’s not a good sign.

_Yes, it hurts._ Her voice is crooning. He can feel her long nails scratching his cheeks as she grips his face, holding him still. _But it will hurt more_.

That was when she ripped out his eye. Dug those steel-capped nails of hers into him and –

“Lucien?”

Lucien jerks back with a hiss before he realizes it was Azriel’s voice. He sounds equal parts wary and concerned. “I’m fine,” Lucien says shortly, unsure which is worse:  the pain in his throat or the phantom pain in his face.

He healed, but nothing could bring his eye back.

“You obviously aren’t fine.” Azriel’s seated on the bed, his back against the windowless wall. The dim light reminds them of their helpless situation, but, Lucien notices, also makes Azriel into a man of shadows – dark hair and dark eyes and dark skin, all melding into a silhouette that looks barely human.

_Beautiful._

Lucien swallows against the burning in his throat, then parts his lips slightly so he can breathe through them instead of through his sensitive nose. It helps, but not much. With each passing hour – each passing minute – Azriel’s scent assaults him more. It’s not unbearable, though. Not yet. Lucien clings to the faint hope that he’ll be able to endure, that he’ll be able to maintain his self-control either until they escape (whether by their own actions or a daring rescue attempt by someone else, Feyre maybe) or until he dies.

He doesn’t know if the latter’s possible. But it seems like it might be. He already feels half-dead from being in such an intimate space with Azriel for so long.

Lucien suddenly wonders whether he could even harm the other man. He doesn’t know why it didn’t occur to him before. After all, in their first encounter, Azriel was very much the one who held Lucien’s life in his hands. Lucien wouldn’t put it past the man to have a silver knife hidden somewhere on his person, in his sock or strapped to his thigh, somewhere their captors wouldn’t have thought to search. If he does, and it comes to that, Lucien hopes that he’ll use it. He would rather Azriel slit his throat, silver blood draining onto the concrete floor of their cell, than for he, Lucien, to leave the cell a free man and leave behind Azriel’s empty corpse.

He would rather Amarantha take his other eye than that.

That’s when the voice starts again.

 

“No. Get away. _Get the fuck away from me_.”

Azriel backs up a step, hands in the air. “All right, all right. I was just seeing if I could help.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help me.” Lucien’s voice sounds raspy even to his own ears. He doesn’t know whether the sound is because his throat is truly burning – perhaps if he unclenched his teeth flames would shoot from between them – or if it’s because he’s been holding in a scream for hours now. It hurts. God, it _hurts_. And Azriel isn’t helping.

Lucien’s losing his mind.

Even when he closes his eyes, he can see Jessie, and Amarantha, and even his old boss, Tamlin. Taunting him. Screaming at him. Accusing him, or hurling vicious insults. He can feel Amarantha’s nails caressing his cheek, the back of Tamlin’s hand. He can see Jessie’s skin go pale and her eyes go blank. He even sees the faces of his other victims, feel how they struggled before going limp against him. _A monster,_ they tell him, voices thin and sing-song like children’s. _You’re a monster, Lucien, you always have been and you always will be._

He’s going to die before he ever gets around to killing Azriel.

 

Lucien inhales deeply, the sharp-sweet scent of Azriel’s blood making his stomach tighten. He shouldn’t be breathing it in like that, but he’s too far gone to remember why. And part of him doesn’t want to remember.

“You smell so fucking good, Az.” Lucien licks his lips, slowly and thoroughly. Drunk. He’s drunk on the other man’s scent. “So good. You know that?” He takes a step towards the bed, where Azriel is sitting like a statue of oak wood and obsidian. Impenetrable. Immovable.

Lucien thinks that he hates him, and then wonders if he loves him.

Or maybe he’s just _thirsty_.

“I’ve been told as much before.” The indifferent response has Lucien baring his fangs as he slinks closer. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that Azriel gets to sit there, uncaring, as Lucien’s coming apart in front of him. Lucien longs to change that, longs for Azriel feel the same burning pain of _want_ that he does. He longs to bite him – kiss him – press his body to the other man’s and draw out all that sweetness, shatter all that ice.

_He wants him._

“And so pretty,” Lucien breathes. Azriel flinches away from the hand suddenly cupping his face. “You’re pretty, Az. You’re –”

_Beautiful_.

Lucien staggers backwards as violently as if he’d been slapped. Before him, clear as day, he sees Azriel with a frozen look of fear on his face. “I’m sorry,” Lucien rasps, shame burning through him, hotter than the pain in his throat. “God, Az, I’m so sorry –”

Azriel doesn’t respond, and Lucien, crouched as far away as possible, has somehow bought himself a little more time.

He just doesn’t know how much.

 

Time has started to blur together. Lucien’s vaguely aware that it’s passing, that days must have gone by, as he observes, as through a fog, Azriel tending to his human needs:  eating food, drinking water, even leafing through a magazine their captors had thoughtfully left in the cell. His eye catalogues every one of Azriel’s movements, from the slightly pigeon-toed way he walks to every time he needs to brush his hair out of his eyes to the self-conscious way he curls up when he tries to catch some sleep. Each one of the things that makes Azriel distinctly himself.

Every time it seems to be too much, when Lucien thinks he’ll fly into a thousand pieces if he doesn’t pin Azriel down and drain every drop of blood from his body, he digs his fingernails into his palm and concentrates on these things. On all these beautiful, _beautiful_ things that will be lost if Lucien kills him. And every time, somehow it’s enough.

He realizes (with a sick, regretful sense of triumph) that he’s done it. He’s defeated his instincts. All those times before, the humans who’ve fallen to his fangs – he didn’t know them long enough for there to be anything to latch onto besides their necks. Nothing to stay his hand. He knows he won’t attack Azriel again, now; not only did he pull away on the very edge, but he keeps doing so. The voices in his head have quieted. It’s over.

He also realizes, almost at the same time, that he’s going to die.

The idea doesn’t bother him as much as it should, he thinks. But he knew from the beginning that this was no fairy tale – that there would be no happy ending for him.

His life for Azriel’s. Not such a bad way to go.

 

“You’re really not going to do it.”

“What?” Lucien struggles to hold onto the words, but they slip through his fingers. Words have become slippery things in the past hours, even to hold in his mind, unspoken. Except for one word, of course.

“You’re not going to do it. You’re not going to kill me.” Azriel’s voice is rough, and in his haze, Lucien can’t tell whether it’s with relief or frustration, confusion or awe. Perhaps some combination. Perhaps something else entirely.

“No,” Lucien murmurs, eyelids fluttering but then falling closed again. “I would as soon destroy a stained-glass window.” The word echoes through his mind again, and he wraps his mental fingers around it, desperate to stay anchored to reality for at least a few moments more.

But Azriel is silent.

Lucien wonders vaguely whether Azriel’s left before remembering that he can’t leave. Neither of them can. They tried again and again, but the door and walls remained as immovable as they were when Azriel first beat his hands bloody against them.

Then, quite unexpectedly, those same hands, rough with scars, slide around Lucien’s body. “I’m sorry,” Azriel whispers, and Lucien thinks he must be wrong, this can’t be Azriel, because this man’s voice is vulnerable – open. But who else could it be? “I should’ve done this sooner. But I was afraid.”

Lucien feels Azriel’s hands tilt him up, and then he feels something against his mouth. Something soft, and warm, and _alive_.

Lucien pulls his mouth away from Azriel’s neck. “No,” he murmurs. “Please. Az…”

“Bite me.” His voice takes on a harsher tone, and that would be what tells Lucien that it truly is Azriel, if the scent of leather and sweat and _vanilla rum lilies_ hadn’t been washing over him in waves that he could ignore now, making his identity undeniable. “Lucien. Bite me.”

“I can’t.” Lucien’s voice was no more than a thread as he held onto the word. “I can’t kill you, Az.”

“And I can’t watch you die.” Azriel lifts Lucien’s mouth to his throat again, holds him there. “I trust you,” he says softly.

_Beautiful,_ Lucien thinks, releasing the word into the darkness of his mind and the darkness of Azriel.

And he drinks.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on tumblr as birdiethebibliophile!


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